25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
We all deal with anxiety; but why? As believers in the one who is all and in all, we really have no legitimate reason to be anxious – with that said; anxiety is still a reality.
A few things I have learned from my own experience are that often my emotions are the driving force behind my anxiety. When I feel like I’m not in control, I feel helpless / powerless and weak. Somehow I have tied my self-worth to my ability to control my life. Thus the more control I have the greater my value as a person. When this cycle becomes “out of balance” (from a Christian perspective it is always “out of balance”) that is when I am prone to feeling the stress of anxiety. The reality in this situation is that I have no eternal perspective with regards to life’s situations; which results in pulling tomorrows trouble into today - for which there is NO grace.
Sadly this reveals the "littleness" of my faith in these situations; which ultimately is a trust issue. I tell God that I cannot trust him to see me through life’s hardships, that I cannot trust him to have the ultimate control. Perhaps this is a glimpse of why some are prone to self-doubt with regards to their salvation. Could it be that lack of ability to control every facet of natural life only amplifies ones inherent in-ability to control the spiritual realm? In other words; the fact that we cannot save ourselves from the mundane reveals that we truly cannot save ourselves eternally.
And so if my focus remains fixed on controlling every earthly situation on my own; at best my focus is divided between the temporal and the eternal. At worse I am not seeking (first) Gods kingdom and his righteousness. And despite the resulting torments of anxiety, nothing I desire will be added to my life.
Luther.
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